Dead Lock (Michael Flint #5)

Chapter 1

-

Off the coast of New Zealand

Events unfolded precisely as Michael Flint had planned.

The South Pacific Ocean’s sliver of new moon was barely visible through the heavy clouds. The line between sky and sea lay beyond his vision, and without the tiny red glow from his altitude and direction indicator Flint might have lost track of which way was up.

A third of a mile from his target, he eased back the throttle on his dinghy and killed the engine. In normal circumstances, he would never think of traveling so far in such a small craft at night, but his circumstances never seemed to be normal.

In the darkness, the red and white navigation lights on the superyacht were plainly visible.

“We should paddle the rest of the way in,” Craig said.

Flint’s client had once been the chef aboard Insatiable. Tall, sturdy, and competent Cynthia Craig was no stranger to hard work.

They sat on either side of the boat, silently easing the paddles in and out of the water, rowing in unison. Flint had every confidence in her abilities. And her determination.

Two years earlier, her father-in-law, billionaire Rupert Tulane, died.

He’d lived a life overflowing with every luxury and died quietly in his sleep on board his beloved superyacht, Insatiable.

Two hundred and forty feet, six decks, and twelve cabins impressed even those who traveled in his extremely wealthy, powerful circle.

A congenial man who liked his food, Tulane had teased Craig that one day she would own Insatiable. It had been a standing joke between them.

“Not long now,” he would say with a grin.

Or, “Mine yet?” she would ask with a wink.

When he passed away, Rupert’s son, Leo, had immediately sacked Craig. She wasn’t surprised. Her replacement looked good in a skimpy bikini, and Leo worked hard at his party-boy image.

Six months afterward, she’d received an anonymous email claiming she’d been included in Rupert’s will. Eight more months later, her lawyer finally uncovered the truth.

Rupert Tulane had indeed bequeathed Insatiable to her.

She couldn’t afford to operate the yacht, but a $150 million gift was nothing to walk away from.

A year later, Leo Tulane’s lawyers were still stalling. Which was when she searched for alternatives to collect what was rightfully hers. She found Flint.

It took Flint less than twenty-four hours to locate Insatiable and another two weeks to unravel the problem. Leo had been left a fortune, of course. But it was a tiny fraction of his father’s total wealth. So Leo had simply taken off in the yacht and left his lawyers to handle the fallout.

Leo kept the ship in international waters off New Zealand to avoid trouble with the authorities over his wild, often drug-fueled, parties. Which also made taking possession of the yacht a difficult proposition.

Flint was comfortable with impossible odds. Even if it meant rowing a small boat in the cold dark ocean miles from the shore.

Around three hundred yards from the yacht, they stopped rowing.

Craig spoke into a short-range radio aimed to reach her contact on Insatiable. “Hey, Stranger.”

They waited for a reply. The tiny boat rocked on a gentle swell. With a storm approaching from the east, the ocean would be rougher tomorrow. Insatiable remained rock steady, stabilized by the latest technology. Which Flint planned to put to good use.

After exactly sixty seconds, Craig repeated the radio message. This time a reply came immediately.

“Let’s party,” a man replied.

Flint grinned in the dark. The contact on the boat had two possible replies. One phrase if they needed to abort. But “Let’s party” meant they were clear to board.

A moment later, the rear navigation lights on Insatiable’s port side blinked out. Flint and Craig resumed silent paddling.

Insatiable’s hull towered above the dinghy as a deep blackness against the faint reflective clouds. They stopped paddling a few feet from the ship. Directly above their position, a tiny flashlight blinked twice.

A moment later, a rope descended. Flint ran his hand along the first few feet of the rope to confirm it had been knotted at two-foot intervals to make climbing easier. Satisfied, he held the rope out to Craig.

“Ready?” he whispered.

She took the rope. “Positive. Board now. Dump everyone off tomorrow. Just be back here as planned.”

“Ten a.m. On the dot,” Flint replied.

She gripped the rope and started to climb. He worried about letting her go alone. He would have chosen another plan, but there was no time. It might be months before Insatiable would present itself in a suitable location again.

He lost sight of Craig as she climbed the rope.

A few moments later the flashlight blinked again.

He tied the rope around the handle of a large plastic container.

A hundred pounds of dead weight was hard to lift, but Craig’s work with the rope took up the slack and it ascended smoothly.

He caught sight of the container go up and over the gunwale.

The flashlight blinked one last time, and Flint turned away from the yacht and paddled. Smooth strokes. Carefully. Quietly. Tomorrow, when he returned to Insatiable, stealth wouldn’t be required.

Six hours later, Flint stood at the wheel of Sand Dollar, a fifty-foot charter sport fishing boat with a large open deck large enough for thirty people or more behind the wheelhouse. He navigated over the white caps that rocked the boat left and right.

The weather had turned at sunrise. The approaching storm threatened to engulf everything in its path. Flint had been lucky last night. These five-foot rolling swells would have aborted their earlier approach to Insatiable.

Sand Dollar’s engine note rose and fell with a repetitive cadence in response to the swells. If he’d had options, Flint would have turned into the waves to blunt the rolling, but he had no better choices.

He’d departed idyllic Russell on the long narrow peninsula in the Bay of Islands a couple of hours earlier. Running due west, he spotted Insatiable at about three miles. This time he made no attempt to hide his intention, keeping the prow of his boat aimed at the boarding steps on the port side.

Insatiable was drifting free, not underway. Despite the waves, the rear swim deck had been lowered. A group of people had gathered on the main deck around the boarding steps. Using binoculars, Flint identified Leo in the center of a group of bikini-clad girls.

More importantly, two large men stood to the right of the group, Saul and Chad, Leo’s personal security. Both had muscles bulging under tight T-shirts and rap sheets dating back decades. One spoke into a handheld radio, and the other had binoculars trained on Flint.

Flint smiled. Partly to irritate the thug, but mainly because he was getting all the attention he hoped for.

Two hundred feet from Insatiable, Flint launched a small drone. Purchased two days earlier, he’d sprayed it with paint aptly named sky blue. Steering the device to three hundred feet in the air, he pressed a button on the remote control to lock the camera on Leo.

The loud buzz of the drone’s four propellors would be audible on the yacht.

From Flint’s research, Leo’s security were muscle men not known for brains or marksmanship. Which meant the drone should survive the next fifteen minutes and that was all he needed.

Flint motored the final distance up to the yacht, stopping thirty feet from the hull, the prow of his boat pointed at the boarding steps. Someone activated a switch, and the boarding steps rose to the horizontal and recessed themselves into the superstructure.

Leo leaned against the deck’s railing, twenty-five feet above Flint, sneering down.

One of the guards produced an automatic weapon. The cluster of girls drew back a step.

Leo said something inaudible, and they returned, closer to him. He wrapped an arm around a dark-haired girl’s waist with the sneer still firmly fixed on his face.

Flint picked up a bullhorn. “Leo Tulane.”

Leo kept up his sneer, silent.

“Are you Leo Tulane?” Flint repeated, raising the volume on his bullhorn.

One of the guards handed Leo a bullhorn. The yacht rocked as a monstrous wave passed through and Leo grabbed hold of the girl to avoid falling while the boat rolled.

Which was when Flint realized Leo was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Leo pulled the girl back and held her tight against him as he leaned forward to speak through the bullhorn. “Who’s asking?”

“It’s a simple enough question,” Flint replied. “Seems to be taxing you, though.”

Leo laughed. The gaggle of girls laughed with him. Then he released the brunette and leaned over the railing. Flint resisted the temptation to grin as the man struggled to coordinate pressing the talk button on his bullhorn while shouting obscenities.

One of the girls stepped away from the group and headed toward the ship’s enormous main deck lounge. Not what Flint wanted, he needed as many people in one place as he could muster.

“Your audience doesn’t care what you think either,” Flint pointed to the departing girl.

Leo barked instructions in the girl’s direction. She turned, swaying for a moment before forcing a smile and stumbling back to the group.

Flint held up a two-foot-long cardboard tube sealed on both ends. “Consider yourself served.”

He hurled the tube high over the yacht’s railings. The tube bounced twice on the polished wood deck before rolling to a stop. One of the guards handed it to Leo.

Leo laughed as he waved the canister in front of the girls. He turned to Flint as he held the tube over the railings intending to drop it into the ocean.

“You see that?” Flint gestured toward the drone. “Real-time streaming video delivered to a server in the US. Remarkably clear video and audio.”

Leo waved the tube in the air as if performing for the camera. “Here’s what Leo Tulane thinks of your papers.”

He let go and the canister hit the water with a small splash. It bobbed along the waves.

“Oh look. Now’s your chance.” Leo mimed swimming. “Dive in. Grab your precious papers.”

The waves pushed the tube against Insatiable’s hull before drifting aft. Leo pointed to the tube.

“Come on! Let’s see hero man rush to save his precious papers.” Laughter broke out among his entourage. One of the guards pulled a large gun and unleashed a storm of shots at the tube. One went through the center, pushing the tube along the waves as it sank.

Leo placed his hands over his heart, pretending to be hurt as the tube disappeared.

Flint kept a straight face, even though he wanted to smile.

Never before had yesterday’s newspaper drawn such attention.

Leo would likely have been confused if he had opened the cylinder.

His guards, however, should have recognized the tube for what it was.

A decoy. A distraction. A prop in an elaborate con.

On the edge of his peripheral vision, Flint saw Craig wave. She held up both hands, fists clenched. A simple yet unmistakable symbol. In a matter of minutes, Insatiable would be hers.

“What’s that?” Flint pointed to wisps of smoke emerging from the doorway of the main deck lounge.

Leo scoffed without turning around. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Dim as a broken bulb but take a look.” Flint shook his hand, still pointing to the main deck lounge.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Suit yourself.”